Road to Nowhere
by Eleutheria Wolf
Summary: Set in the Problem Children Universe, 2 years post-COC. "Carter is done with it; done with the concerned, pitying looks, done with the fearful whispers, done with the people who tell him he's a monster. What he needs now is someone who understands."


"Where are you going?"

The voice is calm and quiet, but it irks him nonetheless. He doesn't turn around; he just keeps walking and watching the sunset glow on the city blacktop.

"Somewhere you're not." He's aware that he sounds like a sulky toddler. Too bad. He doesn't care right now. He's done, he's so done with this place.

"That doesn't sound very productive. You don't even know me or what I'm offering, and already you're saying you don't want my help."

That sends him spinning around. He may be a small kid, but he's scrappy, and he doesn't lose fights. Period. He registers that the speaker is another kid- teen, really- maybe five or so years older than himself- brown hair, hazel eyes- and he holds himself like a soldier. All this he instinctively sees and understands and discards in his mind, just while whipping around to confront the intruder.

"Your help? Who says I want your help! Or need it!" he spits, furiously, ready to throw himself at this boy, ready to fight, to win. He's just so angry, after this afternoon, after all the looks, the whispers, the worried, resigned, pitying faces. He's so done, just so done with everything. The _anger_, like black swamp water, begins to bubble beneath his skin, and immediately he's preoccupied telling it no, no, go back to sleep, go back to sleep…

"That's the thing, Carter. I think you do need my help. Don't you?" the stranger says, emerging from the alley. Contrary to his sardonic tone, the stranger gently and firmly takes Carter's skinny wrists and untangles them from where Carter has wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep the anger inside, where it can't hurt anyone. For a moment Carter stares at him, trying to understand the terrible pity and sympathy and knowledge in those too-wise eyes… before he comes to his senses and leaps back, snatching his wrists away and rubbing them like they've been shackled.

"D-don't know whatchu mean," he says, backing away, shaken and falling deeper into his native slang. He had almost…and then the other boy just… but the stranger seems to know how uncomfortable touch can make him, and doesn't make a move forward. Instead, he put his hands in his jacket pocket, after first flipping them inside out in an easy, familiar movement to show that there's nothing in either pocket or hand, and Carter relaxes. Marginally.

"You do," the stranger says in the voice of absolute surety, still not moving, eyes half in shadow. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Prove it," Carter snaps, a little of his fire coming back, though he's still rubbing his wrists. The stranger doesn't even blink. If anything he seems almost more focused and more darkly amused. Carter feels his ire rising at the expression. And then the stranger begins to speak.

"You get angry, more than other people do. Sometimes, you start getting angry and you can't _not _be angry, no matter how hard you try, and it only stops once you pick a fight or do something stupid that could get you killed. You feel dangerous when you're angry. You fight- often- and when you do, you never lose, and sometimes it feels like you can't stop. You try the things they talk about at anger management, counting to ten and all that, but it never works. Your anger feels like something else, like a monster, like something you can't control. I could go on, but why bother? Tell me I'm wrong."

Carter feels like he's been socked in the gut, and like the stranger says, he's been in enough fights to know what that feels like and how to do it just right so that your enemy is on the ground gagging because you hit their lungs or kidney. It feels like that now, but he uses what strength he has left to stay standing, although his shaking hands go to his head again, and he stumbles backwards.

"How…" he eventually gasps, questions beginning to edge out the shock. "How…how do you _know_? How did you- I mean- you're right, but- _how_?!"

The stranger's smile is sad and sympathetic, though he seems no less dangerous- now that Carter thinks about it, he does seem dangerous. It's hidden, maybe… but not well enough that he can't see it, just enough so that he can ignore it for a little while.

"How's that working out for you?"

And unexpectedly, that makes Carter angry. Most things do, but that's beside the point. This teen, no matter how well he understands, is making fun of his anger, his loneliness, his inability to control himself. This anger, though, this doesn't feel like the thick black anger that rises up and takes him away from himself. He straightens, looking and feeling strong once more. This feels… good. Like himself, not a monster. It makes him bold.

"How do you _think _it's working out!" he spits out, eyes narrowed in righteous rage. How dare this stranger, this intruder make fun of him! He starts forward… but even with what he himself just said, the stranger doesn't move.

"I don't know," the stranger says gently, "why don't you tell me?" Carter stops, bitter anger on his young face. Suddenly, he feels the urge to speak, to unload all of the angers, the frustrations, the worries that weigh him down like chains, the things he can't say to his family or his social worker or his non-existent friends.

"It sucks, okay!" The boy shouts, whirling around, "It sucks! They say if I just focus, if I just try, I can control myself, I don't _have_ to fight, but they don't get it! They just don't get it, it's not me! It's not me! And I do try, I do! And nothing they say, nothing they do or say ever works! And they all think I'm a monster, like I _chose_ this or something…" Carter trailed off, fighting the unexpected choke of tears in his throat. This is too much, too far, but he can't stop now. "…I didn't. I'm _not_." His last words are almost a quiet wail.

Behind him, he hears the stranger walk towards him, slowly, non-threatening. A hand on his shoulder makes him flinch, but it is warm and almost comforting through the thin sleeve of his shirt, so he leaves it be.

"Carter."

He doesn't respond. He can't, right now. He's too busy trying not to cry.

"Carter, what they want, what they do… it won't ever really work, I promise. It can't work, because what they think is happening and what's actually happening are two different things. You know, I know, but they can't know it, not without feeling it."

"Then it's hopeless," Carter whispers, almost against his will. The hand on his shoulder squeezes a bit- in reassurance, he thinks.

"Just because it can't be controlled their way doesn't mean it's hopeless. It _is _possible to control it, just not the way they want you to. You can even use it, if you like. It makes it easier."

Carter's snuffles, already barely audible, quiet as the stranger speaks. Slowly, the young boy turns his head slightly to look back at the teen out of the corner of his eyes. The older boy does nothing, just watches him with unreadable eyes. They are silent. After a moment, Carter mumbles something, and the stranger raises an eyebrow. Carter clears his throat and tries again.

"I said, how do you control it?" the boy murmurs quietly, the choke of tears still audible in his voice.

"You find a teacher," the stranger says, unmoving, his face serene. "That's what I did, at least."

After a long time- so long that the sun is almost all the way set- Carter turns around, face dry of tears, to look the stranger in the eyes. The stranger's face remains unreadable… but now, Carter thinks he can finally see the question there, the question that was there all along.

"Okay," the nine-year-old boy says, and the stranger relaxes, smiling a strangely kind smile at him.

"Okay," he echoes, and Carter, though he still feels his tears, wants to smile a little in return. The stranger turns and walks back down the dark street in a manner that suggests Carter should follow. Carter follows obediently, and the teen leads him back down the streets he had walked several hours ago, suddenly far more at ease. But there is still one question preying on Carter's mind. Trotting up to the stranger's side, he tugs on the older boy's sleeve, and once he has the teen's attention, he asks.

"What do I call you?" Carter says, and the other boy's face is carefully neutral as he replies.

"What do you want to call me?" There can only be one answer to that question, and Carter already knows.

"Teacher," the young boy says with the utmost certainty, and the teen's- Teacher's- dark eyes soften almost entirely for the first time that evening.

"Okay, then," his teacher says gently, leading Carter away into the night. "Call me that."


End file.
